


Sing Me to Sleep

by InFamousHero



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Casual Sex, F/F, Flash Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Mental Health Issues, Scottish Culture, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Transhumanism, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-10 08:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 18,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6975100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFamousHero/pseuds/InFamousHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing a recovering veteran needs is being thrown right back into the fire, especially when they left on medical discharge, but that's exactly where Karen Stroud finds herself. The new world is a battlefield on the corpse of the old and no matter where the path forward leads her, Karen is all too aware she won't be who she was when she woke up...</p><p>[This is a collection of drabbles and shorts regarding my Sole's experiences in this ruined world she's found herself in and the effect it's had on her. They will be in no particular chronological order.]</p><p>[Errors will be caught as and when they can] - [Title is from "Asleep" by The Smiths]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unable to bring herself to destroy her last tie to the old world, Karen sided with the Institute. She wakes a few nights after their victory, still reeling...

Karen jerked awake and tried to wipe the memories away with a swipe down her face. She scowled and screwed her eyes shut, trying to push it all down and down until she couldn’t feel it any more.

Total numbness would be a mercy right now. She knew in some ways she was, made unresponsive in daily interactions because her mind just wasn’t focusing on any of it. It wasn’t important, not when her mind was trying to process everything at once.

The clean, cool air of her quarters pricked at her skin as she got out of bed and walked around her room. Pacing wouldn’t do her any favours, she knew that, but she couldn’t help but move. She dropped into push-ups and tried to focus on the number and the eventual slow burn in her muscles.

It didn’t matter, that phantom weight against her chest wouldn’t leave.

Nate had left for a few days. It was the first time he’d left Shaun and her properly alone together. The way Helen left him made him skittish about putting too much ‘pressure’ on her but Karen waved him off, reassured him she was fine with the situation.

It was nice having people in the house for once. She was so used to being alone with her peace and quiet, the rigid routine, the _privacy_ that kept her flaws away from uncomprehending eyes. But she’d known Nate since they were kids, if she couldn’t trust her best friend to see her with all her fractures then who?

Shaun always felt terrifyingly fragile in her grasp but Karen just clenched her teeth and dealt with it, making sure he was comfortable and fed. She could’ve done without the noises at night but kept herself in check. 

If she didn’t think she could handle it she would have told Nate, but the stress was manageable and she hadn’t been in service for a while. If she could wake up in the middle of the night to deal with a crying infant and  _not_ break down herself, she couldn’t be doing that bad.

It was the night before that  _horrible_  day that her mind insisted on bringing up, reminding her of Shaun’s weight in her arms and the way he stared at her, quite content after she’d fed him.

_“You know, I thought I’d be more afraid of you.”_

He didn’t really pay attention to that, he just reached out and touched her face, investigating the scars that streaked across it.  _“A little different from your dad, I guess…”_  she’d murmured, just letting him be curious for now.

His eyes weren’t that different from hers, she and Helen happened to have the same colour and it actually amused Nate. He’d joked once or twice about people mistaking Shaun as  _their_  child before they talked about their situation seriously.

Holding Shaun then, she’d just smiled and kissed his head. She’d never really thought about children, but she was willing to take Shaun and Nate in. It wasn’t as if she was in a position to really make a family of her own or even _find_  someone willing to understand her issues when they  _did_ get worse.

At least Nate had some military in his family, he knew a thing or two about what war could do to someone.

Something gave out and Karen slumped to the floor, huffing out annoyed, laboured breaths.

It had only been a few days. She couldn’t expect herself to push as hard as usual, she didn’t have the energy, she didn’t- she couldn’t-

She opened her eyes, forehead propped against the floor, and scowled accusingly at the droplets gathering beneath her face. Her vision blurred and she hissed choice words between her teeth, grief swelling into anger.

Her fist met the cool alloy of the floor and she snarled wordlessly, turning on her side and curling up. She burrowed her hands into her vest and clenched as hard as she could, wrapping her arms tight. It wouldn’t do her any good to break her hands pummelling the floor.

Nothing would do her any good right now. What could she possibly do to make sense of…

He was gone. After everything she had done because of him, _for_ him, because she couldn’t stand letting go—what had it really added up to in the end other than more ruins?

She just needed to wait it out. Take time to process, even if it meant lying on the floor and crying like a child while she waited.

She just needed time.


	2. Out of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siding with the Institute felt inevitable, Shaun was everything, after all. But at what cost? At what gain?

Bile. It burned and bubbled in her throat, and she threw herself out of the power armour and onto the asphalt, emptying her stomach amongst the smoke and blood.

It was sand under her hands and knees, rubbing against her skin–salt water soaking through her clothes as the waved crashed behind her. Whistling filled her ears, so many were screaming already. The Chinese ocean exploded behind her and Karen coughed, sucking in air as she forced herself to her feet.

The ground was asphalt again. Orange blazed across the night sky in a deafening, numbing explosion and she twitched, trying to keep her thoughts in one place and time.

“We need to get you out of here, ma’am.”

Karen didn’t respond, her eyes fixated on the Prydwen and Prime’s deep, mechanical voice rumbled through her. His arm reached back for another payload and he took aim for a second time.

There was no one left to stop him thanks to her.

 _She did this_.

The brilliant flash of teleportation almost blinded her and she stumbled, righting herself just in time to see the next bomb hit. Wrenching metal sent a terrible, unnatural groan through the sky and fires raced through the Prydwen’s structure, burning through it’s frame in bursts and whorls. It’s great bulk began to dip to the ground and it sank, slowly at first but it rapidly picked up speed and seared through the air until it finally collided with the earth.

Whatever it was that stole her breath, the great shuddering  _boom_  that sent tremors through her legs, the gust of air that followed or the sudden snap of heat that prickled along her arms and face–it couldn’t compare to stillness in her mind. In this singular moment she was frozen, struck by the all the implications and consequences at once to the point of  stupor.

She had been here before.

Karen knew she wouldn’t leave this place for a while. Her body might move. Her mind would not.

The same voice from before spoke and she didn’t hear the words. But her arm was taken hold of and she closed her eyes with an intensely dry sting.

Cold. Silent.

Karen opened her eyes, blinking out the light of the Institute. She was slightly aware of being lead, most likely to the doctor to make sure she wasn’t hurt. Her assumption was quickly proved correct.

Some minor burns and a cracked rib. Most of the damage was bruising and muscle contusions. She wasn’t feeling the pain and kept losing focus on the doctor’s face. The smell of smoke and laser burns refused to leave her, even after hours in the cool, regulated air.

Someone jogged up to the doctor and spoke in whispers to him, sparing her some worried glances. Karen perked slightly and frowned, trying to focus. Why were they looking at her like that?

“She’s can’t go up there like this,” the doctor blurted out.

Karen stood up from the bed, pulling her jacket with her, and both men looked at her with varied degrees of concern.

“Take me to him,” she muttered.

It had to be what it was. Events like these rarely cared for good timing, she knew that far too well. 

She followed them in silence, numbness running rampant through her thoughts. Everything felt strange and disconnected, like her feet weren’t her own and were just moving on automatic, like puppet strings. She knew this as well, from the same battle that saw her out of military service in the old world. But there was no leaving this time, no way out she  _wanted_  to take.

Shaun looked so weak now, so  _tired._  She tried not to think about him as an infant but her mind jumped back to that time despite herself. How many months had it been…?

How many  _months_  since she’d held him in her arms like the most fragile thing?

Whatever he said it drowned in the white noise filling her thoughts and she dropped her jacket on the floor, simply holding his hand and listening to the sound of his voice. The details in his skin, his hair and fingers, the cords of his throat–years had passed without her, without Nate. Neither of them were there like they should have been but when she finally was?

When she finally was, this was what awaited her.

This  _whisper_  of something finished. Something passed.

Something she  _should_  have been a part of—was _almost_ a part of.

She should have been here.

Smiling. He was smiling at her, eyes half-shut, and Karen just squeezed his hand. She  _couldn’t_  smile, she knew her eyes were stinging and her cheeks were wet, but her face wouldn’t move otherwise. She couldn’t even find her voice, let alone words to say.

She couldn’t tell how much time passed before she realised his hand had gone slack in her grip, but when it hit her she slumped to her knees, brow propped against his bed. Still she held his hand, not ready to let go of it, of _him,_  but knowing damn well there was nothing  _left_  to hold on to.

All of it.

All of this pain, blood and effort.

What had it amounted to?

What had she  _done_?


	3. Old World Ink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place long before the Institute wins, when Karen is still searching for Shaun and has Piper along for the ride. Piper keeps noticing that Karen has a lot tattoos and ends up asking about them...

“I gotta ask…”

Karen looked up from the campfire, leaving a pair of gutted lizards to roast over it. She said nothing and just raised an eyebrow, waiting for Piper to continue. “What’s with your tats? I’ve never seen anyone as covered you are or with anything like yours. Usually it’s skulls and ‘ooo look  at me I’m scary’ sharp things,” she gestured with her hands to indicate said sharp things.

That didn’t take long. Karen glanced down at her arms, left bare with her jacket wrapped around her waist. “Not sure there’s anything to them now,” she murmured, settling down on a dusty crate. “I don’t even know if the place they  come from still exists.”

Piper shifted to face her, arms around her knees. “Where’d they come from?”

Karen stared, momentarily caught between her own reluctance and Piper’s obvious fascination. She sighed and looked down at her arms again. “A country called Scotland, a long way from here. It used to be part of a kingdom - a collection of countries bound together by an agreement - but broke away long before the war fucked everything up.” She gestures to her left arm, where dark blue lines swirled and wove together, forming the image of a wolf like creature with ferocious teeth and yellow eyes. It coiled down her forearm and ended with the creature at her wrist. “This is a _Cù-Sith_ , people a long, _long_  time ago believed it was a bringer of death and took their souls. It usually hunted in silence, taking a life before its chosen victim even knew what was happening, but could make three calls that would be heard for miles. If you heard the third call before you reached a safe place, it would terrify you to death.”

“People really believed that?”

“For a time.”

“Did you have a reason for it?”

Karen forced a smile, “I just had an interest in Scotland’s mythology, the stories and legends it used to believe in.”

It was her first successful mission as a sniper, a silent hunter in her own right, willing to snuff out someone else’s life before they even knew what was coming. But it was helpful, it kept her comrades alive, it broke enemy plans–she did what was needed to keep others safe.

Piper looked at the other arm, nodding to it. “Is that another story?”

Karen nodded, glancing it over. Like the wolf, it coiled around her arm in shades of grey and white, stylised with a yellowy mane of seaweed running from its neck to its back. It seemed to crawl out a gushing sea with clawed, webbed feet, and glared out at the world with harsh, green eyes.  “They’re called _fuath_ , there are different types but they’re usually cruel spirits that live in water. Some trick people to their death and drown them or drink their blood, some just cause mischief, others are genuinely helpful, but those aren’t as common.”

Piper smiled dryly at her, eyebrow raised, “you weren’t morbid at all.”

Another accomplishment, a reminder of what she survived. The shore’s of china and its wetlands tried to tear her apart and wring every drop of willpower from her. But she got out of there in one piece and pressed on, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake just wide enough for others to press through and break enemy lines.

She forced another smile, “nah, not  at all.”

“Why are they so complex? Must have taken _hours_ to get all that down.”

“I had them made to mimic the designs found on pictish stones.”

“Pictish…?”

“Uh, there were people called The Picts a really long time ago, before Scotland was “Scotland.” They left decorated stone pillars and slabs behind all across the country with designs like these.”

Piper chuckled, grinning, “how old are you again, Blue?”

Karen snorted and got up to check their food. “Not sure at this point.”


	4. Echo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before The Institute Wins ::: A settlement is attacked by raiders, but when they run away Karen isn’t so forgiving…

They were routed, falling back in a frantic rush to get away while they still had their lives. 

“Don’t let them get away!” Captain Dalton yelled, spurring the unit on.

Her comrades rushed forward and Karen ground her teeth, hurrying after them until she reached a large, rocky knoll in the terrain. Taking a knee, she levelled her rifle with the others and took measured, steady shots at the backs of retreating chinese soldiers. Her hands nearly slipped, her knife sitting wet in its sheathe, and sweat and blood made her eyes sting–but she fired without missing.

Blood blossomed in their uniforms and they fell, one by one. Some lost limbs or their heads to her shots, no assault weapon but a long-range bolt action meant for power over speed, patience over eagerness, calm over storm. She was calm, even when she wasn’t she told herself she was until she believed it, smothered everything she didn’t need in this hostile place until there was nothing but the calm.

It wouldn’t matter until she got home. _If_  she got home. She probably wouldn’t.

Maybe that’s what didn’t matter.

**_“Blue!”_ **

A hard hand fell on her shoulder and yanked her back, putting her aim off. She lost her balance and threw her hand out to catch herself, falling on her backside with her rifle askew.

Karen grunted and pulled away from the hand, blinking rapidly as dust got in her face.

Dust.

She looked down, her hand pressed into dry earth, not the wet mud of a coastal marshland. She clenched her hand, now trembling, and frowned deeply. Shaking her head she looked out at the plains, where only a couple of raiders were sprinting off between the trees. Small groans and pitiful cries came from the ones she’d hit, rapidly bleeding out and soon to die.

Pushing to her feet, she slung the strap of her rifle over her shoulder and looked to her right. Piper was staring at her, frowning, halfway between alarm and disapproval. “They were running,” she said firmly.

“They should have run faster,” Karen growled, turning away from the field to survey the damage.

Most people ran for cover when the shooting started. There didn’t appear to be any dead, just a few injuries that could hopefully be taken care of easy enough. The two scouts waved the all clear to her from their crude watchtower.

Karen glanced over her shoulder to see Piper looking out at the field and sighed. “They would have killed everyone here, but not before doing whatever the hell they wanted to them.”

“I know.”

“Then what’s your problem?”

“You weren’t yourself, Blue.”

She frowned, waiting for Piper to elaborate. She looked back at Karen with worry. “You get this glassy, far-off look,” she said, gesturing to her eyes. “Like you aren’t here any more, you switch off. I dont–”

“Stroud! We got a real bad shot here! We could use your help!”

She frowned and glanced over at the yelling scout. Someone _was_  hurt badly. Sighing, she looked back at Piper, “you shouldn’t worry about my head. It’s kept me alive this long already.”

Piper sighed, crossing her arms. “Right.”

Putting aside her discomfort, Karen turned away and hurried off to help patch up the injured settler in question.


	5. Mechanism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After The Institute Wins ::: Karen and Preston talk about their shared experiences with PTSD.

“Did you ever feel like that? Like you just… didn’t care anymore?”

Karen looked up from the hare sizzling over their campfire and found Preston wasn’t looking at her but the night sky. He was fidgeting with the brim of his hat, clutched in his lap over his rifle.

“I… “ She blinked and looked down at the fire again, trying to arrange her thoughts into something useful. Clearing her throat she straightened her back and sighed. “Yeah, I’ve felt like that. Still do sometimes.”

Preston looked at her, sympathy creasing his brow. “I’m guessing Shaun didn’t help matters…?”

The question went through her like a length of barbed wire and all she showed for it was a thinning of the lips. “No. But maybe if I make enough of a difference out here it’ll balance out.” She smiled sourly and ran a hand under her cap, slipping it off to scratch at her head. “Doubt it, but you can’t fault a woman for trying to fix her fuck ups.”

Before he could probe any further, Karen fixed him with an inquisitive stare. “What have you done to handle it?”

“What?”

“It’s still there isn’t it? That rising dread in your belly at the slightest ‘wrong’ noise, that prickling over your neck like something dangerous is just out of sight?”

Preston blinked and looked at the fire again, frowning. “Yeah.”

“Do you dream?”

“Sometimes. Happened more often before we really got off the ground again, but every now and then I wake up and I’m back in Quincy.”

“I have those too. It’s a normal response.”

Preston looked at her, pursing his lips. “How do _you_ deal with it?”

Karen straightened and squared her shoulders. Memories of long nights and  cold sweat drifted through her head. The paint darkening her brow and eyes was only half for show, she looked like hell underneath.

Steadying her breath, she sighed quietly. “For dreams, I get up and walk around, sometimes I stretch or exercise, I take note of everything around me and remind myself that what I’m feeling is because of a dream, not because I’m actually in danger.”

He nodded, eyes flicking towards the fire, and frowned again. “What about…” he paused briefly, chewing his lip to find the right words, and continued after only a couple of seconds, “what about when you’re awake and it still comes back to you?”

“Talk to yourself, remind yourself what day it is, where you are. If you’re with someone, ask them to ground you. If you’re alone, have something on hand to anchor you to now.”

“Like what?”

Karen dug into one of her pockets and pulled out an ampule of yellow oil, tossing it to Preston. He caught it easily and raised a brow at her. “Carrot seed oil. It’s not a smell I was familiar with before and I’ve found it yanks me out of the memory, if I have the wherewithal to reach for it.”

It didn’t work every time, but enough to be reliable. Associate a smell with calm and it could cut through that irrational panic like a knife.

At least for most people. She suspected if she had been born in this time and raised in this nightmare she’d be more receptive to it. As it was…

She pushed the thought from her mind, focusing on Preston “Keep it, see if it does you any good.”

He looked up with a smile, tucking the ampule away in his coat. “Thanks, Karen.”


	6. The Highlander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before The Institute Wins ::: Karen and Piper find a strange little shop in the depths of Boston.

“Hey, Blue!” Piper waved at her from across the side-street and Karen replaced the cap on her canteen and put it away.

“What is it?” She walked over with her helmet in one hand and rifle loosely held in the other, raising a brow as Piper pointed up at the weathered old sign over a boarded over shop. “That’s the place you were talking about right? When you were telling me about your ink.”

The words were hard to make out, most of them worn away over time and harsh conditions, but a string of them at the bottom were just about visible.

‘ _…irect from Scotland, hom…’_

Karen blinked, her mind temporarily blanking on her.

She slipped her helmet on and slung her rifle on her shoulder, moving to test the door to the place. It was jammed and the lock was rusted over. The  wood looked weak enough…

She backed away and before Piper could finish asking what she was thinking, she aimed a hard kick right next to the lock. The wood buckled inwards, splintering apart and clattering to the floor. A third of it clung to the rusted hinges in small ragged chunks.

Karen turned on the flashlight attached to her helmet and pulled out her sidearm, pausing for a moment as the dust settled. The sensors in her helmet didn’t seem to pick up anything, no movement other than dust particles.

The store inside was dark and musty, with collapsed displays in the middle of a large square room. The walls were lined with shelving units made from tougher material, with scraps of old items for sale and broken display cases. Banners hung in thin strips and tatters from the ceiling, the colour and writing long since faded into near obscurity.

She slowly walked in and turned on the light of her pipboy for Piper’s benefit, crunching splinters and glass under her boots as she went.

A counter at the far end of the room played host to several broken old registers and a shelf half-full of glass bottles. They held orange liquid inside them and Karen picked one of them out, carefully wiping the dust of its faded label. The name ‘Ion Bru’ could still be read and she smiled, the sudden smell and taste of spiced bubblegum washing over her.

She set the bottle down on the counter and glanced around, noting what else remained. Various mugs with rings of tartan around the top, displays for coasters, paperweights, engraved shot glasses–most of the items were scattered on the floor but a few survived.

Frowning, Karen turned her attention to an alcove behind the counter. Stepping around it she found a door far more willing to open without force and walked through into a storage room.

It was a lot less chaotic than the shop itself, a bit emptier, but it had shelves and boxes tightly packed around the walls and in a row down the middle. She walked by the first few units until she came to a shelf at the far end lined with large packets.

Holstering her gun, Karen pulled one of the  packets free and wiped the dust off the label.

‘ _DOUGLAS, SCARF_ ’

She blinked and looked up at the shelf, her heart jumping.

Dropping the packet she rifled through the others, wiping them down to reveal various names until her hands were filthy and the packets lay in a pile around her feet.

“Blue?”

Karen grinned as she revealed the newest name; MacIver. She quickly got the protective packet open and pulled out a preserved scarf dominated by red and black with a hint of white.

“This,” she said, turning around to face a confused Piper and holding up the scarf. “ _This_  is mine.”

Piper squinted, raising a hand to block out her helmet light. “A brightly coloured sheet…?”

Karen quickly switched off her helmet light, letting her pipboy illuminate the tight space instead. “No, I mean, yes, well.” She sighed and carefully turned the scar over in her hands. “This kind of pattern is called tartan, people usually wore it in kilts,” she said, suddenly looking around again as the thought crossed her mind, “which I should…really look and see if there are any left.” She coughed, returning to Piper. “There were different clans in Scotland that each had their own kind of tartan and you could wear based on which clan was connected to your family line. Mine was MacIver, on my mother’s side.”

Piper glanced over her shoulder at the scattered packets. “And kilts are?”

“Skirts, anyone could wear them. They’d usually come with furry animal hide pouches worn at the front and a good leather belt. Sometimes you’d hide a knife in your sock.”

“You _had_ to come from the weirdest place, Blue.”

Karen took the affectionate jibe in stride and smiled behind her visor. She carefully wrapped the scarf around her shoulders until it was comfortable and secure. She looked up to see a smile on Piper’s face. “I like it,” she said, crossing her arms. “Adds a splash of colour to the soldier getup.”

Huffing in amusement, Karen continued moving around the storage room. “Glad you approve.”


	7. Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before she got wrapped up in faction conflict, Karen earned caps and gear around Goodneighbour, along with a reliable reputation. She could’ve left sooner, but Magnolia’s pull was too strong to ignore for long…

Karen told herself it was the whisky and left it at that. She didn’t want to wave away the haze of the Rail and break the spell.

As hypnotic on the stage as she was up close, Magnolia’s eyes all but twinkled in the low light and Karen couldn’t help but be enthralled all over again. She’d spoken with the singer before, the first time she came to Goodneighbour and got her bearings, and it wasn’t enough. There was something undeniably magnetic to Magnolia and the way she held herself, the way she spoke and  _sang._

Again, Karen waved away any too serious a thought. This wasn’t a fanciful crush, daydreaming for something that would never be. It was simple attraction and by the way Magnolia’s hand drifted up her thigh, the feeling was mutual.

It was the eyes, Magnolia told her, dark and stormy, intense with the experience of a life fraught with danger, yet kind. Karen never gave her pause, the instinctive, momentary beat of warning in the gut to steer clear. She had a  _very_ good sense for that, after all.

The last of her whisky disappeared and Karen left her seat at the bar, jacket over her shoulder and Magnolia by her side. The walk to the Rexford was brisk and quiet, comfortably so, and they got to Magnolia’s room soon enough.

The first kiss was brief and hasty, the second longer and steadier, slowing as Magnolia’s calm hands worked the impatience from her muscles. She fumbled with the dress, inactivity and stress rusting her hands with frustration. But if she was rusty, Magnolia was more than happy to provide the oil, and Karen quickly found herself again.

Her drab, utilitarian gear crumpled on the floor next to Magnolia’s dress, a splash of vibrant red that at once made Karen think of blood and roses.

They fell on the bed in a tangle of limbs. Flesh was an easy thing to remember once she felt it in her palms again. Her touch became as firm and hungry as her mouth, leaving a scattered trail of welcome red marks as she travelled the length of Magnolia’s body.

Nails dragged against her back and shoulders, leaving red welts she could ponder later when the spell broke. Her fingers found the perfect rhythm to make Magnolia  _sing_  and the nails pressed harder. It only spurred her on, further and further, eager to please this enigmatic woman and be pleased in turn.

Adrift in this war unending, this untamed ruin of a home she barely came to know—it could be forgotten. For just a few moments, she could lose herself to simple, primal pleasures.


	8. FUBAR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newly awakened and thrust into an unfamiliar world, Karen seeks shelter and remembers that one of her neighbours had a cellar out back...

Dust whisked around the tiny cellar as she slammed the heavy trapdoor shut and stood in the darkness, hands wrapped tight around the handle above her head.

She was still cold, damp from the cryostasis—the emptiness. The others, preserved but gone, not reborn like she was, left to stumble from her cradle like a wet fawn— _Nate._

The bang ricocheted around her skull and she ground her teeth, releasing a strained wail in the darkness. High calibre, it ripped right through his skull and opened in a plume of bright crimson out the back, staining the inside of his pod.

Her breathing was too loud. She tried to count and remember her SERE training. Zero to ten and back, to twenty and back, to thirty and back—she finally swallowed the knot her throat and let go of the door. She wiped the caking dust and moisture from her eyes and turned away from the ladder.

Light from her pipboy illuminated an old switch and she flipped it, turning on the single, caged ceiling light with the buzz of an activating battery.

Someone intended to survive here but either they didn’t get down in time or something else happened. There was no skeleton but there was a small pile of rusted, empty cans by the ladder. Karen frowned and eyed the shelves crammed against the walls to her immediate left.

The cellar was shelter, secure for the moment. Supplies were her next concern.

She looked over the shelves and sorted them into ‘usable,’ ‘workable’ and ‘recycle.’ Putting things in order focused her mind and allowed her to step back into her military shoes.

There was enough preserved water to support her for two days, four if she pushed it. Most seals on the remaining tinned food were compromised. There was only a tin of beans left and a box of sugar bombs.

The crates supporting a thin mattress were empty, just there to keep it off the ground. But the metal box next to it was far more promising. Protected inside its confines, was a compass, a small box of 10mm bullets, a pistol to go with it and a survival knife in a worn leather sheath.

Karen quickly clipped the knife to her vault suit and made a mental note to scrounge something less garish to wear. It was too colourful, even without the overgrowth of flora outside the bright blue and yellow would stand out.

There was a stream and river nearby, both fed into a pond to the immediate north-west of the neighbourhood. Boiling would deal with the immediate concerns, but she would need to put a filter together for long-term.

As for food…

She swallowed hard and shook off the swell of nausea that shot through her belly. She didn’t want to think it was real. It _couldn’t_ be real, but she’d seen it, felt it, the snap, flash, _boom_ that rattled her bones and set the horizon ablaze.

She’d shoved Nate onto his back with Shaun in his arms before it went off, instinct. The light hit her and everyone else too scared or unaware to think about it.

Karen looked at her hands, turning them over. She seemed fine for the moment. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she feared.

Two-headed deer didn’t seem like a smart choice, but she could’ve sworn she spotted a rabbit dart into the underbrush on her way here.

She eyed the pile of ‘useable’ items and dug out a coiled up length of cording. It was slightly stretchy and Karen supposed it came from some kind of sporting equipment. With the right placement and a sturdy anchor, she could make a trap.

It was a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SERE is a military training program used by both the US and UK forces with slight variations. US version stands for "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape."
> 
> Side Note: I have a pet peeve regarding the Fallout setting in that after a relatively short amount of time, nature would recover and begin taking back the landscape rather than remain barren. People are clearly farming and growing things in the Commonwealth, there are farms everywhere, yet the landscape is largely dead and dusty. I didn't have as much of a problem with this in New Vegas because of the location, but I still favoured mods that brought in a touch of flora that made sense for said location.
> 
> I do love Fallout as a setting and largely overlook the weird and terrifying things it does with radiation but this particular aspect just personally bugs me.


	9. Into the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen’s first real encounter with the less hospitable inhabitants of the Commonwealth at Concord.

Brickwork spat through the air, scattered by bullets from ramshackle guns and grimy hands. The dust of broken masonry stung her eyes and Karen shook her head, clearing out the detritus. Her thoughts were muddled and abrupt, survival sang like gunpowder, snapping against her with the bang, bang,  _bang_  of her enemy’s aggression.

Survive.

Survive.

Survive—for  _Shaun_.

She told the hound to stay there, where it was safe. A firefight was no place for a dog.

She ducked inside the building sheltering her through a long broken window. Hurrying through its bowels brought her to rain weathered stairs and to the second floor where her rifle would be better used. A makeshift sling kept it close to her back but she pulled it loose and knelt against a broken wall.

The bullets didn’t follow. They hadn’t seen her move.

She peered over the wall and saw them at the end of the street, gesturing to each other. They were talking but she couldn’t hear them over the blood rushing in her ears.

Instinct—she lifted her rifle and trained it on a target in the back. A squeeze of the trigger and their head plumed crimson. Their body staggered, their hand seized and fired the gun they held. They flopped to the ground.

Some turned around in surprise, a mistake. Karen slipped into an all too familiar skin, methodical, calm, cold—aim, breathe, fire, aim, breathe, fire.

Dust and brickwork scattered around her, focus, track targets, duck down, listen and reload. Rise when the bullets stop, aim, breathe, fire, aim, breathe,  _fire_.

It didn’t take much longer for them the scatter, calling a retreat.

She lifted her rifle and their backs bloomed red.

The building, the museum, it was as much a mess as the outside. More hostiles, people dressed in ragged leather and old metal, strapped together in some hellish facsimile of ancient knights.

She didn’t bother with the ‘gun’ she was thrown, it looked like it would fall apart the moment she tried to fire it but she could tell it was some manner of laser rifle. Not one  _she_  had ever seen, but it didn’t matter, lasers were never something she took to. Too visible.

The people in her way were reckless. Some gave chase; others rose out of cover to goad her as if bravado was infectious and would make her follow suit. No such luck.

Those who chased found their makeshift melee weapons twisted out of their hands and a knife in their guts and throats. She grabbed them by the hair, kneed them in the groin or punched them in the throat or eyes or kidneys, whatever worked to get them off balance and ripe for a quick kill. Live or die moments cared little for chivalry.

Preston. His name was Preston Garvey and he needed help. Civilians in the middle of a war zone, or what certainly felt like a war zone to her. She didn’t question it, all that mattered was that they were friendly and they were civilians with very little protection.

The armour closed around her, the kind of suit she once wore in desperation as shells fell around her, the visor blown out by an anti-tank round. Blood and viscera dripped down the back of her neck and turned her stomach but she hauled what remained of her squad into her arms and carried them to safety, smaller bullets raining against her back.

Karen blinked her vision clear and dropped from the building, landing with the crack of asphalt and concrete.

“Armour!” The ‘bandits’ cried out and Karen clenched her teeth. The minigun spun to life and roared, rattling through her heart and bones.

Red  _scattered_  across the road. Limbs flew and heads sprayed, woefully unprotected from such a barrage. She advanced over the wreckage of their bodies and gave no quarter, leaving only the dead or dying in her wake.

Something rose in her peripheral, large, looming—it roared.

She turned to face it only to be sent staggering by something out of myth, striking her shoulder. A wingless  _dragon_  bounded towards her for a second swing and she opened fire. The bullets dug into its arm and it didn’t back down.

Talons raked against her breastplate and the thing roared into her face, fogging her visor. She swung the barrel into its belly with a hefty thud and it snorted heavily, only to reach down and grab it. It had  _hands_.

Karen barely registered that before the monster wrenched the gun from her and swung it into her like a club. The blow sent her reeling and she nearly toppled, only righting herself several meters away.

She heard the gun smashing against the asphalt behind her and looked at the dead bandits. One of them was carrying a makeshift sword, bulky, roughly sharpened and clearly made from something bigger. She rushed to grab it and spun around just in time to meet the beast again.

It lunged and she swung hard, opening an ugly gash across its face and splitting an eye. Bright red flowed down its face and it snarled, swinging at the ground to try and throw dirt in her face but it had no effect. Karen screamed and swung again, lodging the blade in one of its wrists.

The monster released a shrill cry of pain and scraped at the sword, wrenching its wrist free of the blade with a crunch of bone. It paused, blood dripping, and Karen advanced as she did on the bandits. She swung for the neck and cleaved it open, painting its chest and the ground beneath it with blood.

Pawing at its gaping throat, the reptilian beast staggered and collapsed, struggling to breathe as it began to sputter and choke on its own blood.

And everything was silent.

Karen dropped the sword with a clatter that broke the air. Numb and reeling, she turned from the museum and began walking back towards the sanctuary of her neibourgh’s cellar.

Perhaps in the quiet dark, she could process what she’d seen today.


	10. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen wakes from a troubling dream about her times in the Old World, but at least she isn’t alone for now…

They were coming, fast and noisy, confident through the underbrush. They had numbers, dogs and guns. Hard shrubbery tore at her legs and Karen stumbled, cutting her hand against a fallen tree, its ragged core ripping her flesh.

Strong hands pulled her to her feet and a stern voice spoke to her, the words unclear. Their face was shrouded in darkness, with only the barest light shining in their eyes.

They removed their jacket and cut rough strips from it, quickly binding her hand. She clenched it and they turned the knife on themselves, cutting a ragged line in their own palm. She protested or tried to, and her throat twisted.

They spoke again, a warning, urging silence, and pointed over her shoulder.

“ _Run_.”

 

For the briefest moment, she could smell pine, blood and sweat, her heart freezing in momentary terror. Her hand curled against her stomach, taking the sheet with it, and she took a moment to breathe deeply and calm herself down.

Karen sighed and slowly rubbed her face.

Uncertainty was worse in many situations. Terrible revelations could still lead to closure in one form or another, but the dream…

The dream was confusion and uncertainty manifest, playing on her muddled memories fractured by time and trauma alike. Much of it was blurry, a bleeding of the five senses between shards of crystal clear carnage and agonising inaction. The long nights of hiding, of waiting—waiting to hear the banshee whistle of artillery, to hear the first gunshot of another firefight, the subtle rustle-crunch-crack of encroaching infantry.

The worst was the buzzing. Quiet, electrical, and with it the shimmering of air, misshapen, bending around a form unseen. The piercing of flesh and the panicked gurgling of a friend choking on their own blood, throat blossoming red around the knife of a Chinese soldier who disappeared into the shadows just as quickly as they appeared.

But the dream wasn’t so obvious, it didn’t borrow from memory. It borrowed from sensation, the rising dread and panic, a frenetic mix of escape and loss. Too many friends died to get those damned _ghosts_ off their trail. Until she was alone. Behind enemy lines.

The brass only knew someone from her squad was still alive because of the bodies she left behind. The panic she caused in the Chinese infantry was enough to break ranks and take the region her squad died for.

Warmth curled against her side and Karen started, drawn out of her thoughts by an arm sliding across her belly.

Piper’s dark hair spilt over her shoulder, slow, sleepy exhales scattering warm breath over her skin.

Sighing gently, Karen relaxed and reached out, tracing the line of Piper’s jaw to her chin and ghosting a thumb over her lips.

It was behind her and Karen was determined to leave it there, eventually. For now, she had a _very_ good reason to stay in the present.


	11. Noodles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen never expected her pre-war linguistics to have any relevance in the Commonwealth…

“Over here, you look like you need a hot meal anyway.” Piper smiled and led her towards a ramshackle joint in the middle of ‘market.’ The waning afternoon cast a long shadow from the lip of the stadium’s corpse, dousing it in the chill of a coming night. But as they walked over, strings of lights sprang to life to the muttered thanks of patrons.

They approached the counter and the robot tending it turned to them, a stained chef’s hat placed on its ‘head’ at an odd angle.

“Nan-ni shimasu-ka?”

Karen jolted, staring at the thing as if it had tased her. Her mind was a flurry and she grabbed for the pieces it kicked up, frantic for something familiar no matter how removed it really was.

“What?” Her tone was abrupt and distracted.

Piper stage-whispered to her, “just say yes, it’s all he understands.”

Karen absently waved her away, ignoring the quizzical look it earned. “What did you say?” she asked the robot again.

It repeated itself and the words clicked into place. “ _May I take your order?_ ”

She wet her lips, raking through memories left in the dust of inactivity. A few were churned to the surface, she recited them in her mind and more came back until she slowly asked, “ _what do you have?_ ”

Piper’s brows shot up and she lifted her hands as if to pause the situation.  “Wait, you can talk like that?”

Karen ignored her for the moment, staring at the robot. It twitched and when it spoke again her heart sank. “ _May I take your order?_ ”

Maybe it was the broken nature of her speech, it was the pigin variety passed around by personnel at the time, along with a pigin form of mandarin.

She sighed, hanging her head. “Yes,” she muttered. The robot creaked into action, working away in its slapdash kitchen.

Piper patted her shoulder and she looked up with a frustrated frown even as Piper offered sympathy. “Don’t feel too bad, Blue, he responds like that to everyone, all the time.”

Karen grunted and sat in the nearest stool. “So he’s broken.”

She nodded, settling on the next stool over. “Seems so, people have tried to fix him but, uh…” Piper trailed off, casting a conspiratorial glance around them. “McDonough doesn’t want him debugged for ‘cultural reasons.’ He’s a staple and all that.”

Karen fought the urge to give Piper a side-long look at that, swallowing her instinctive distaste. Journalism and _journalists_ were double-edged swords by nature, especially if they possessed a sensationalist streak, but she had worked with a few during her career and they were good people.

The interview was short and to the point. She was a former soldier, specialized in ‘long-range combat’ and ‘scouting,’ as she put it. She came from before the war and all she had left was Shaun.

But Shaun wasn’t _really_ hers to begin with. He was Nate and Helen’s child. She was simply there to help a friend get back on his feet and pick up the pieces Helen left him with.

She cleared her throat and pushed the spiteful thought aside. She had a responsibility to find Shaun, for Nate’s sake, for her own peace of mind.

Focusing on the now, she forced a smile. “Maybe someone will figure it out in the future,” she said, relieved as a pair of steaming noodle bowls were put in front of them.

Despite the futility she murmured a polite thank you in her broken Japanese and tucked in.


	12. Neighbourhood Watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen has an unsurprising reaction to one particular individual during the events of "Kid in a Fridge."

Grey skies and blustering wind whisked fall leaves across the broken road ahead but did little to hide the figure she spied under the shade of an evergreen. A man, dressed in a green uniform—one of those Gunners she’d run into before. He was sitting against the tree, propped on a crate with his arms crossed.

The nape of her neck prickled and she kept her eyes on him, ready to lift her rifle should he make a move.

Once they got close enough he stood up and held his hands out in a peaceful gesture, but his smile did nothing to make her relax.

“Hold up.” She murmured the command and put her hand out, halting the kid and Piper behind her. The man nodded politely and approached them, stopping twenty feet away.

“Cute kid,” he said, gesturing to Billy. “He for sale?”

It took a moment for Karen to really register his question, too busy processing the brick of ice it tossed into her gut like a riot shot. She blinked and swallowed the cloying burn in her throat, scowling at him. A flash of nervousness crossed his face and she gripped her rifle tight. “Get the fuck away from us,” she growled, ragged and hard.

The man lifted his hands and backed away to his tree. “Fine, fine,” he said with forced nonchalance.

“Let’s go,” Piper said quietly, ushering Billy ahead while Karen kept her eyes on the Gunner. He had turned his back and begun walking off the road, away from his ‘watch.’ He was likely returning to a camp.

Her belly boiled.

Piper raised her voice to normal. “Blue, come on.”

Karen clenched her jaw and looked over her shoulder at Piper. The look in her eyes must have been something, because Piper recoiled slightly, swallowing. Worry furrowed her brow and she kept an arm around Billy. “Karen?”

The boy looked up at her, equal parts confused and afraid.

“What did that man want with me?”

Karen ground her teeth and turned away. “Piper, take him down the road. I won’t be long.”

Piper’s knowing tone did nothing to stop her from walking. “Karen, no. Karen! Damn it.”

She followed the Gunner’s path off the asphalt, noting his boot prints in the mud, freshly soaked from last night’s rain. The light of a fire shimmered between petrified and living trees alike.

Karen dipped low to the ground and crept along until she had a clear view of the camp. It was small, fit for one or two people but the only one around was the Gunner. He picked up a beer bottle and opened it, downing some in a couple of deep gulps.

She rushed from behind and lunged, knocking him over with a hard kick to the back of his knee. Face down in the mud, she straddled his back and pressed the barrel of her revolver against the back of his head, coiling her free hand in his long hair until he whined.

He stopped struggling as soon as he felt the gun. “Wh-what the hell?! Get off me!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What?”

“You wanted to buy a child.”

He tried to twist his head to look at her but she yanked his hair and pushed his face into the ground. “Shit, woman!” He hissed, clenching his hands in the mud. “They’re easy labour to keep in line and they don’t eat as much! Little shit’s a ghoul right?” He struggled to turn his face again but she stopped him. “Ghouls don’t age! He’ll stay that size for life!”

She angled her gun and shot him in the shoulder. The man screamed and she shoved his face harder into the ground, muffling the noise. He tried to push her off and she shot his elbow on the same side, blowing out the joint. He flopped, crying and panting with the pain.

Standing up from his body, Karen brought her boot down on his injured shoulder, forcing a strained yell from him. “Stop!” He barely managed to look up at her in time to see her level the gun at his face.

With his skull emptied, Karen turned away and walked back to the road, taking little time to jog and catch up with Piper and Billy.

Piper sent her a hard, worried look and she focused on Billy, offering him a genuine, warm smile. “Don’t worry, kid,” she said, “you’re safe with us.”


	13. Mortality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen took the news of her pending promotion to Director very well.

Death was far too familiar a staple of her life to be anything but cosmic bullying.

The burn of whiskey slid down her throat and Karen paced in her room, surrounded by the quiet, clinical walls of the Institute. She turned back and forth, back and forth, drinking as she went and rubbing her eyes.

Exhaustion pulled at her bones, trying to drag her to a limp and useless heap on the floor but she was too restless.

Shaun’s voice rattled in her head and she barely heard the rest of what he had to say. Those two words went through her like a bullet through the belly and nearly buckled her then and there.

She turned around, gripping her bottle tighter. The single gunshot that put Nate down echoed in her mind and she pressed the heel of her hand to her brow, scowling. His blood was a bright as anyone else’s, his body sagged and his jaw hung slack, eyes wide and glassy. Ever so suddenly, her best friend was nothing but an empty bag of flesh and bones.

_“I’m dying.”_

Karen screamed through clenched teeth and threw the bottle at the wall. It smashed, scattering glass and alcohol on the floor.

She lurched and punched the wall, all her frustrations pouring out in unchecked aggression. Pain throbbed through her hand and she punched the wall again, breaking the skin on her knuckles. A third strike and with the sharp cracking of bone she gasped and sank against the wall, cradling her broken hand.

Eyes stinging, she propped her brow against the wet wall and hissed a string of curses.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

It couldn’t be.

They still had time.

Karen took a deep breath, fighting down her urge to yell as she got to her feet and the bones in her hand shifted.

Once everything was dealt with, she would get in as much time with Shaun as she could. She didn’t come this far, through this ramshackle war zone and its disparate peoples, just to watch Shaun die so soon.

There _would_ be time.

There had to be.


	14. Self-Awareness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen’s response to Blind Betrayal is to try and beat Arthur over the head with a philosophy stick.

“Those ideals it’s trying to champion aren’t even it’s own. They were artificially inserted in an attempt to have it blend into society!”

Karen carefully stepped to the side until she was standing between them, her belly twisting upon itself as she met Arthur’s dark and stormy glare. Nonetheless, she steeled herself and spoke firmly.

“You don’t see the irony, do you?”

A slight sneer tugged at Arthur’s lips and he narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Are your ideals really yours, or were they drilled into you by the Brotherhood?”

Anger flashed across his face and his eyes widened. “We’re nothing like the Institute or their abominations!”

“He’s right,” Danse chimed in behind her, ever faithful to the Brotherhood even when they were set on rejecting him after everything he’d done. “You can’t compare the two just to defend me.”

_Watch me._

Karen swallowed the words in favour of focusing on Arthur. “Give it a moment’s thought, Maxson. You were raised by a military organisation, strict, regimented, rules and ethics dictated to the lower ranks by superiors, no room for deviation. How is that so different from Danse? You believe the same things and they were all decided for you by the people who _made_ you!”

“How dare you. I had the choice to step away and make my own life! _He_ knew nothing else!”

“And you didn’t? Your whole life was the Brotherhood, wasn’t it? Day in, day out, rules, order, discipline, obey your superiors or else. How much ‘freedom’ did you really have in the person you became?”

“That is _not_ the same!”

“How? How is it not the same?”

Arthur’s breathing slowly increased and his eyes flicked from her to Danse and back again. She could see the gears turning in his head and getting stuck, coming up against who knew how many years of zealous dogma.

She remembered the Squires in the lower levels of the Prydwen and her stomach churned again. Children were unsettlingly easy to brainwash.

With a long, wavering inhale, Arthur scowled and lifted his chin at her. “Synths are an aberration of—”

She cut him off with an abrupt, “of what? The _sanctity_ of the human body? We walk around in suits of armour that enhance our ‘nature-given’ strength, sight and resilience, Maxson. Ingram uses it to replace her _natural_ legs, as she should!”

His scowl deepened and he repeatedly pointed at the ground for emphasis. “There is a difference!”

She spread her arms, frowning. “Is there? Technology has been with us from the moment we started using tools. Synths might not be human, but they are _people._ I give you the benefit of the doubt when I treat you as a free-thinking person because when it comes down to it _you_ really can’t prove to me that you’re conscious outside emotional, subjective observations. And neither can I.”

Arthur raised his voice, “that _thing_ —!”

She spoke louder, clenching her hands. “ _His_ name is Danse! He’s served you with as much fervour as you have the Brotherhood yourself! Judging him on whether that loyalty was any more imposed on him than _yours_ was is an insult to his service! It’s an insult to the honour and pride he’s brought to this Brotherhood! It’s an insult to everyone he’s ever risked his life to save! That service deserves better than your _fucking_ pride!”

The air hung heavy on them and Karen sucked in a quiet breath. She swallowed hard, watching every twitch of Arthur’s jaw as he processed her words. A vein in his temple throbbed.

He looked away from her, fixating on Danse. “As far as I’m concerned… you were hunted down by _this_ Knight and executed. Your remains were incinerated. _You_ are dead and if you ever try to set foot on the  Prydwen or speak to _anyone_ from the Brotherhood of Steel, you will be fired upon, immediately. Do you understand me?"

Karen exhaled, closing her eyes. She could hear the smile in Danse’s voice and it put a lump in her throat. “I do. Thank you for believing in me, Arthur.”

Arthur was quick to coldly respond, “don’t mistake my mercy for acceptance.” She opened her eyes and glared at him as he continued. “The _only_ reason you’re still alive is because of her.”

That this was the best she could do for Danse made her want to take Arthur to the ground and beat him bloody. But that would get her nowhere and Danse would just pull her off him. This… this would have to be enough.

Arthur looked directly at her. “I’m returning to the  Prydwen, _Knight_. Take some time, say your goodbyes, and then I _expect_ to  see you there.” His eyes hardened on her. “We still have the Institute to deal with.”

He turned away and Karen slowly exhaled, trying to purge the shake from her lungs.

The Institute…

Shaun.

She swallowed hard and shook her head. She had other things to focus on right now.


	15. Civilian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the dust at Arcjet has settled, Karen is keeping nightwatch at the police station when Rhys comes back from a small patrol...

“So you decided to stay, huh? I expected you to take your payment and run.”

  
Karen looked up from checking her rifle to see Rhys walking in from the outside, dusting off his suit without even bothering to look at her. She dipped her head to glower at his tone.

  
“Spit it out, civvie,” she said, firmly setting her rifle down on the small table she was settled at.

  
He straightened, glaring at her. “ _Civvie_? Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re not even military, you’re just some loner who happened to show up at the right time!”

  
Her stomach boiled but she remained where she was, keeping her hands on the table and linking them in front of her. “If you really are military then you know as well as I do that it doesn’t just leave you. It gets branded on your bones, it's in your blood. De Oppressor Liber, to liberate the oppressed.”

  
A sneer curled his lips. “What?” he spat, turning to face her fully. “You read that in some old book? Didn’t take you for being literate, but if you think that’s all you need to fake being a soldier you’re dumber than I thought.”

  
“I’ve been frozen this entire time, _civvie_. I just came out of a Vault and learned it’s been two-hundred years since the bombs fell. I saw the ones that hit Boston, just in time to go below ground.”

  
“Nice story, try harder.”

  
“Do you think this thing on my arm is for decoration, _pìyǎn_?”

  
“What did you just—?”

  
She stood, hands flat on the table. “It’s Mandarin Chinese for someone who thinks they know someone at a glance and treats them like a spy. Maybe you do, when they’re from this sorry excuse for a state. But it isn’t called a state anymore is it? You all call it the ‘Commonwealth.’” She scoffed. “Some progress you’ve all made. It’s barely any different to a war-zone.”

  
He spat on the floor between them. “If you can’t handle it then get the hell out of here. We don’t need a shifty coward at our backs.”

  
She was across the room in seconds, the table and her rifle shoved out of the way in a clatter of wood and metal. She grabbed him by the front of his suit and shoved him into the wall with her arm under his chin. He brought his knee up but she heaved and threw him to the floor before it connected.

  
Through clenched teeth she snarled down at him, “don’t you _fucking_ dare call me a coward! I served this fucking country until it wrung me dry! And you’re strutting around like you’re the _real_ fucking soldiers! Calling yourselves ‘Knights’ and ‘Paladins’ like you’re living in a fucking fantasy! Fuck you!”

  
“Quiet down!”

  
Karen’s head whipped around to see Danse walking in through a side door, in from where he and Haylen were sleeping through night shift. He was frowning deeply and looked at them both. “Explain yourselves, right now.”

  
Rhys quickly got to his feet, chin raised. “Sir, she launched an unprovoked attack on me, she’s unstable and untrustworthy. We can’t let her stay here.”

  
Danse looked at her, his eyes unreadable. “Unprovoked?”

  
Rage still pressed her to bloody Rhys’s nose and she clenched her hands tight, trying to exhale her anger. “His conduct was unprofessional,” she said with a ragged inhale, “the mark of a poor soldier.”

  
Disapproval flashed across Danse’s face and Rhys spat at her, “mercenary.”

  
He fixed Rhys with a glare, “enough!”

  
Karen turned away and picked her rifle up by its sling, letting it hang so as to pose no threat. “Sorry for the disturbance, sir,” she muttered, pushing the door open, “I won’t stick around to do it again.” She stepped outside and let the door shut behind her, exhaling into the chilly night air.

  
If that was the best this broken country could offer her, she might well be better on her own. Paladins, fucking _Paladins_ …

  
She huffed and started walking, only to hear the door open behind her. She expected to hear Rhys calling after her to get another last minute insult in but instead it was Danse. “You’re not done here, soldier.”

  
Karen stopped and closed her eyes, sighing deeply. She willed herself to keep walking, just walk and find her own way. But she turned on her heel and faced him instead, opening her eyes to see him standing at the top of the stairs to the police station. “Well, at least you think I’m a soldier.”

  
“You carry yourself like one. I heard you yelling—he called you a coward?”

  
“I know, I shouldn’t have let it get to me. I’m sorry.”

  
“Coward isn’t a word to throw around lightly, especially after you charged in to help us just the other day and performed flawlessly at Arcjet. Rhys should have known better and for that _I’m_ sorry.”

  
She swallowed, unsure how to respond. Danse gestured to the door. “We could still use someone with your experience. I believe your story. Vault-Tec was just the kind of shady corporation who would do something like that and you fight like no one I’ve ever met. We may not be exactly what you knew, but our Order was born from the vices of the old world to do better in the new one. Take some time to think and I believe you’ll come to realize you’re better off with us than not.”

  
He let the words hang for a moment and she gave him a small nod, letting him return to the station.

  
With a deep and tired sigh, Karen walked back up the stairs and sat against the station wall. She’d give herself until morning to decide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, Karen called him an asshole.


	16. Cloud Cover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen finds herself in dangerous, unfamiliar territory, the dangers of which are quick to prey on her mind…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Brief body horror.

The sky was blue and clear, warm sunlight bathed the land around her, fields and hills gently rolling into each other and covered in a blanket of vibrant grasses and wildflowers.

Karen breathed deep, smelling the flowers and the damp earth beneath her feet. A fresh rain…

Rain.

She closed her eyes, recalling the cool sensation of rain on her skin.

The earth rattled under her, forcing her eyes open to a darkened sky and the bright,  _bright_ plume of light rising on the horizon. It stretched and boiled the air, black around the edges, curving on itself as it climbed, higher and higher, into a familiar shape. A mushroom cloud.

Hot, ashen wind whipped at her but she stood, crossing her arms to shield her face.

The grass tore and scattered, ripped from the dry earth, cracked and barren.

The heat receded, darkness and cold were quick to take over. Karen sucked in a breath and immediately hacked, coughing out the particles falling from the sky. She looked up through stinging eyes and held her breath, staring at the thick, black blanket of clouds hanging overhead. They stretched to the horizon.

Patter. Patter. Patter.

When the rain fell it was black, heavy with soot and radioactive particles, stinging,  _acidic._ It touched her skin and she screamed, stumbling back as it began to blister and burn.

She looked down and found her hands gnarled and warped, her skin ripped as if broken at invisible seams. Necrotic, gangrenous—it was falling off. Her  _flesh_ was melting away in the rain, blackening,  _oozing_  off her bones in strands and chunks.

She screamed again.

 

Karen jolted awake, freezing with her jaw clenched so tight that several of her teeth painfully throbbed.

The bunker was quiet, save for the distant rumble of a storm.

Rising from her makeshift bedroll, she mechanically went about checking her weapons, consuming some rations, and finally packing up and climbing into her power armour.

She opened the inner blast door and closed it to safely open the outer door.

The black rain gave her pause and dark, oily water pooled at her feet, trickling down the visor of her suit. Thunder rumbled through the air, brought by a crackle of lightning that illuminated the broken, hazy landscape of the Glowing Sea.

Karen swallowed hard and closed the outer door behind her. She hadn’t made it this far through this accursed place to be run off now by bad dreams. Virgil had the answers she needed–she  _had_  to keep going.

She gripped her rifle tight and moved on, trying to ignore the phantom sting of the rain.


	17. Blood Debt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quincy was a wound in Preston’s heart and a stain on the Minutemen’s reputation, one Karen finally has the tools to deal with...

Quincy.

Karen knew the place well enough, heard the story in pieces or all in one go when Preston was feeling particularly open after a few drinks. But it wasn’t somewhere she’d visited, always giving it a wide berth fit for a den of deathclaws—until now.

Now, she would be the death claw.

The rain hid her approach as she crept through the surrounding marshland, her wetsuit built from Institute tech and keeping her all too aware of the warm bodies walking the perimeter.

She took a lone body by surprise. Her knife entered their flank and she twisted it into their kidney, dragging them to the ground. They kicked in the mud but the pain knocked them out in seconds. She dragged them into the marsh, drowning them quickly in the muddy waters.

One by one she went after them, scouts, guards, closer and closer to the real meat of the place. They fell silently, dead in the din of rain and pulled into the marsh.

With her knife bloody and her rifle yet unused, she approached a broken wall and began climbing. She gripped the wet brickwork tightly and found easier handholds in what remained of an old fire-escape halfway up the building.

Coming to the rooftop, Karen approached the other side and crouched, observing the streets and buildings below.

It wasn’t the highest point, but it was close enough and it had better sight lines between the buildings. As far as she could tell, it was also harder to get up to her chosen perch. The stairs inside were shattered and the gunners had yet to build a pathway.

She took note of each body passing into her vision, how their glow dipped in and out of sight as broken beams and walls got in the way. They seemed to be concentrated in two of the main buildings, taking shelter from the rain. Still, some walked the streets and rooftops.

She touched the a pad on the side of her helmet and spoke quietly.

“Set, send them to these coordinates.”

A handful of blue, wireframe skeletons made their way through the streets, splitting off to converge on the large groupings. Gen 1 synths equipped with old stealth field generators. They only needed them for a brief window.

Karen brought up her pipboy, watching dots move across the landscape on her map. She glanced at the buildings where the Gunners were numerous. When the synths arrived, she pressed a button on the side.

Fire tore through the bodies of the Gunners and the buildings alike. They shuddered in the wet air, brick, limbs and shattered steel flying from the flames. The buildings groaned and gave way, buckling in a shower of splitting walls and screaming. Connected walkways snapped like bones, dragging a few unfortunate gunners to a sudden, crushing death.

Karen was up and aiming as soon as the din started. She fired at the nearest target and moved on from there, firing several shots amongst the noise of demolition.

Once the rubble settled, she pressed flat against the rooftop and waited, listening. The remaining Gunners yelled to each other, scared, confused and angry—they were reeling.

“Ma’am, I’m in position.”

X6-88’s voice came through and Karen shifted into firing mode again. “Sights clear?”

He was prompt. “Affirmative.”

She began to squeeze the trigger. “Open fire.”

Thrown into disarray, the remaining Gunners may have outnumbered them but were ultimately rendered helpless. Their combined sniping took out the Gunners who stood in the open first, then the ones who ran to their friends, the ones who ran between cover, and finally the ones who tried to stay but couldn’t help but poke a head out in a futile attempt to spot them.

They waited in the rain, watching, listening, until only the rain reached them. No calling, no running, no shooting, and no signs of life.

Karen made her way to the ground level to a spot on the road just outside Quincy, walking through the rain with her rifle held by its sling until she spotted X6-88’s elusive figure. “You all clear, Set?”

He dipped his head in deference. “Indeed. Expertly achieved, ma’am. The Gunners won’t soon forget this.”

She glanced back at Quincy and released a long, slow exhale. “No, they won’t,” she murmured. Returning her attention to X6-88, she spoke firmly. “Call in our evac, I’ll get a team sent out here to clear and burn the bodies.”

He nodded and in a few short moments, the bright light of the Institute took them home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m overseas right now and writing/posting from my iPad, so my editorial capacity will be a little lower until I return home in early/mid January.


	18. Septicemia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Institute Victory :: Barely any time has passed since the Prydwen fell from the sky and Karen finds herself choking in the clinical confines of the Institute, seeking comfort elsewhere...

Magnolia’s singing was one of the few things to drag her mind out of the mire. Perhaps the whiskey helped, but Karen didn’t want to do Magnolia’s talents a disservice. They were certainly doing the heavy lifting here.

Smoke drifted on the air from an old ghoul’s pipe and slipped through the stage lights, casting the singer in an opaque halo that flipped Karen’s stomach.

That. That was definitely the whiskey.

She felt it before she heard it. The forceful thumping of boots and the rush of air—the dull slap as a bottle thudded into her shoulder when she reflexively ducked her head to the side. Karen spun, backhanding her attacker without taking a good look at them. All she saw was an unmasked human in light gear.

She grabbed their coat and slammed her brow into their nose with a wet crunch. A knife dug into her flank, cutting, pressing, piercing—she shoved them away.

Probing fingertips came away red but it was a scratch, her gear stopped the knife going deep enough to cause real damage.

The adrenaline rushing through her ears waned just enough for her attacker’s voice to break through.

“Showing your face like you aren’t a fucking monster!” He screamed at her, face red, neck cording as bouncers grabbed him. “Fuck you! The Railroad won’t forget!”

He was dragged away, given a chance to go cool off instead of being beaten or shot. Enough people at least respected the Railroad to offer that much.

It didn’t take long for the noise to come back to the bar, people talking, drinking, moving on. Karen could feel Magnolia’s eyes on her but didn’t meet them. She finished her whiskey and stepped away from the bar, walking out.

It wasn’t until the chill of the night air touched her skin that she took a ragged breath and felt the pain in her shoulder. She rubbed her face, adrenaline and alcohol greasing the gears in her mind.

_“I don’t know what kind of chance its got…”_

Piper’s heartbroken face flashed through her thoughts and she grunted, roughly shaking her head.

It was still fresh in her mind. The Prydwen, Shaun’s death, returning to Diamond City like a dog on its last car ride.

Mechanical yellow eyes narrowed, searching, questioning. Nick was just as confused and angry, needed time to go over her words. He didn’t push her away, his anger was quieter. But Piper…

Karen shook her head again, dismissing her thoughts with the care of a distressed child. She turned on her heel and made her way to the Rexford, wondering to herself if Fred had anything that could help her sleep.


	19. Renewal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen has come to see the Institute as something invaluable and intends to utilise it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place between the Vanilla story ending and Far Habour beginning.

It had to be done. No matter if some of the division leads thought resources could be put to more immediate use elsewhere. She could bring them around to seeing the long term benefits of having new construction done by the G1s.

Trust was earned through action. Right now, the Institute had no trust, and active animosity with most of the Commonwealth. It had to be rebuilt if they wanted to get anywhere fast.

The people distrusted and for good reason, but the need for security and shelter could quickly erode that distrust.

She had them develop simple to use and set up modules, recycled from old materials they could dredge from the surface. It cleared up the building sites and provided building materials at the same time.

The first settlement wasn’t too ambitious, just a couple of multipurpose shelters built at a crossroads merchants were known to use. Basic, but watertight, insulating, and most importantly bullet-resistant. The beds inside were basic too, but off the floor and foldable, easy to move out of the way, like most of the furniture. The second shelter had a simple kitchen with a stove, and a sink with clean water.

A few more touches and it was good to go. It didn’t take as long as Karen expected it to but the first couple of people in need to shelter were still skittish, wary of trusting anything under an Institute flag. But her presence and reputation put them at ease and that’s where it started.

A sheltered plot was set aside for a farm using new seeds from the green thumbs in BioScience. Nothing experimental, Karen specifically ordered ones that were already tested to avoid fuck ups. They needed this to work as smoothly as possible.

The first few people settled in well enough, learning the simple systems and growing slowly accustomed to the handful of G1 custodians tending to the place before people fully took over. Rumour spread along the merchant chain and more people looking for community and safety started to filter in.

Crops were sown, a few more shelters were erected, a well was built for those passing through to take water from. Karen made sure to get a gift for the assistant who came up with the ‘dowsing’ software her little army used to find suitable water below ground where radiation hadn’t penetrated so deep.

The settlement had defences, of course it did, but it seemed the Institute’s frightening reputation was enough to scare the more level-headed, and organised, bandits into leaving it alone. The crossroads rapidly became known as a safe place, an oasis of sorts.

When the time felt right, Karen officially handed over local responsibility to a man called Eddie Brooks. He was reasonable, patient, had a great eye for salvage, and the settlers already took to him as a leader. He was a human, but he agreed to report on how the settlement was doing via their terminal. Nothing invasive, another of Karen’s stipulations to gain trust, just regular reports on general well-being and mechanical matters, how the crops were doing, etc.

As she walked a safe distance away, builder synths in tow, she looked over her shoulder at the settlement and smiled stiffly, watching the Institute flag flutter in the wind at the centre of the crossroads.

It was a start.

A quick call later and the brilliant flash of teleportation enveloped her, bringing her home once more.


	20. Meeting DiMA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says in the title.

“So, tell me, are  _ you _ a synth?”

Karen scoffed, giving the machine-man a disbelieving look. “No. I lived before the bombs dropped and got frozen in a vault. Only way I’m a synth is if I pissed something off.”

Curiosity flashed across his face and DiMA tilted his head, the lights embedded in his skull blinking away. “Really? Can you tell me about it, the vault I mean?” he asked softly.

She frowned and exhaled through her nose. “It was a trap. We went in pods for decontamination only to get frozen until a year ago.”

“What were you doing before then? Can you tell me what it was like?”

“I was getting ready for the day ahead. I had a gathering to get to and was helping my friend with his son when it started. Everyone was still just going about their lives like death wasn’t looming over us until it kicked the door down, even me.”

“Tell me, is it only one day you remember before waking up?”

She scowled at him. “There’s a couple of days, then a missing block of time before them. I was involved in a highly-classified military project at the time. When it ended I was given drugs to induce short-term memory loss and reduce the number of people who knew about it for security reasons.”

“That doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” Valentine drawled behind her.

Karen huffed, squaring her shoulders. “I know what it sounds like. But its two-hundred years in the past, they probably didn’t get a chance to utilise anything because of the bombs.”

DiMA stepped towards them, focusing intently on Karen. “Do you have any other missing blocks of time?” 

The grimace was involuntary, an uncomfortable knee-jerk as her mind quickly highlighted certain  _ discrepancies  _ against her will. There were gaps, misalignments—memories that jumped and zigged and rolled into each other at the wrong angle. She always put it down to trauma, concussions, artillery, the slow, agonising stress of waiting for the next attack. Such things could bend time like gravity, making minutes feel like hours or days melt until they were a blur of smoke, blood and piss.

Karen shook her head clear, sighing. “Some,” she admitted, feeling a need to rest her hand by her revolver. She resisted it. “But I was a soldier and trauma can mess with your perceptions.” She frowned deeply, lowering her head to glower at DiMA. “I’m  _ not  _ a synth.”

“It is alright, you would be welcome here if you were.”

“I’m the Director of the Institute. If I was synth they would have found me out by now.”

She explained who she was as soon as DiMA and Valentine were done having their strange ‘reunion,’ and while she agreed not to reveal the sanctuary DiMA still looked uncomfortable at the reminder. “Not necessarily,” he said, gesturing at himself and his ‘brother.’ “We’re obvious enough, of course, but the third generation is indistinguishable.”

“I would be in their system!” Karen spat the words. “Why would they even do all this? Why would  _ he _ do—fuck off!”

“I’m sorry. I only wish to be certain.”

“And I’m fucking done here.  _ Where’s the girl?” _


	21. Need to Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen has trouble getting to sleep since her encounter with DiMA, leaving her with thoughts she can’t ignore for long…

It wasn’t just the military service.

Distant howling carried on the wind outside and Karen turned on her side, frowning as she tried to shut out the sound of waves crashing into the coastline. Her room at the tavern was dry at least but sleep evaded her like a bucking mustang, throwing her with a disquieting jolt when she started to slip.

Cursing, Karen sat up and dragged her backpack over, digging through it for a canteen full of her own special brew. A moonshine dubbed ‘Roadside’ because she’d put it together during her travels and didn’t consider herself original. It had a strong medicinal kickback that made the drinker drowsy.

She hissed some profanity and dropped it in the pack, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palms.

Trauma could only take it so far. Karen knew that, but looking at it any closer twisted her guts into a tight knot. There wasn’t anything to it, she told herself, so there was no reason to be so worked up. And yet…

Civilian memories, her teen years, her childhood—now that she looked at them they felt static and strangely clear. Some people just had good memories. If that was the case with her, they wouldn’t feel misaligned. It was like the screws weren’t tight enough, leaving a memory here and there out of order with the rest, not too far back or forward, but enough to stand out, enough for her to see it.

Sighing, she lay back and worked to think about a specific period of time. Basic training. She thought about her time there, what it looked like, what her fellow recruits looked like and what the Drill Sergeants looked like. She could remember some, but not enough to put her at ease.

Worse, she couldn’t recall much in the way of senses. What the food was like, the taste or feel of the muddy water as she ran, jumped and crawled her way to perfect scores–what time of year it was.

Karen frowned, trying to recall the date. When she came up blank again she shook her head roughly. She got up from the bed and paced around, listening to the waves.

That bastard got his wires under her skin.

Fear turned to fury and she clenched her hands hard enough to shake, fighting the urge to punch something.

The drugs must have messed her up more than she realised. They dealt with memory and were meant to wipe the short-term ones. Something must have gone wrong, the drugs may have been experimental, she may have been given a larger dose than was strictly necessary to make sure she forgot–it could have been down to anything.

Anything.

Karen stopped dead in the middle of her room, her throat trying to twist itself shut. She swallowed hard and ground her teeth, forcing herself to breathe at a slow, even pace.

A thought wormed its way to the surface, suggesting that there was a way she might be able to find out for sure what those missing blocks were.

Cursing, Karen marched back to her bed and dug the canteen of Roadside out to take a long swig. It didn’t take long for the drowsiness to kick in and she slumped back into her cot, eager to escape for a while.


	22. Mirror, Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unable to let it DiMA’s questions go, Karen returns to the only person who can help her…

Ignoring it would only put her off balance and get her killed. To that effect, Karen became her own CO and wrestled her misgivings into submission, swallowing her immense discomfort until she could open Dr Amari’s office door without retching.

“You—!” Dr Amari’s face flashed with surprise and anger, turning away from a stack of papers on the counter and reaching under her coat. “How dare you return here after what you did?”

“You better not miss,” Karen said bluntly, lifting her hands to show where they were.

Dr Amari paused, hand in her coat, her brow deeply furrowed and mouth pulled tight. “Why are you here?” she asked icily, adding a hard, “my services are not for you.”

Swallowing hard, Karen glanced at the memory cradle she’d sat in for her little excursion into Kellogg’s memories. “I need to…” the words caught in her throat and she sighed, shaking her head. “I need to know if I’m human or not.”

Surprised confusion swept over Dr Amari from head to toe, leaving her speechless for a good five seconds before wariness dominated her features. “This is a poor idea of a joke. Explain yourself.”

“There are problems with my memory before the vault. Blocks of missing time and misalignments, the memories feel static and sensationless, they’re too clean. Everything _after_ the vault feels normal.”

“That... could be any number of things.”

 “I don’t get hurt when I should. It took three blows to break my hand against a metal wall. Even then it was _one_ fracture. I should have died in the battle at the Prydwen, but I got away with bruises and cracked ribs. Whether you think I should have died for moral reasons or not isn’t the point, I should have died before now because my body should have given out and it didn’t.”

“You hit it with everything you had?”

“Yes. Three times, only one fracture.”

The wariness remained but intrigue wormed its way into Dr Amari. She straightened and let her hand fall to her side, frowning in thought. “Coursers are more durable than their counterparts and experience more extensive memory tampering,” she murmured, lifting a hand to her chin. She frowned and looked Karen up and down. “What do you expect from me?”

Karen lowered her hands. “If I’m wrong, I’ll never come back to the memory den. If I’m right…”

Dr Amari scowled. “If you’re _right_ you’ve dug your own grave.”

The words cut through her like razor wire and Karen clenched her teeth. “It’ll be what I deserve,” she muttered, looking at the floor. “But I need to know. I’m not asking you to trust or forgive me, I’m asking you to help me as a doctor.”

Silence fell between them like a fog wrapping around her throat and Karen fought the urge to shift nervously, just staring at one of the cradles. She couldn’t even begin to think of what she’d do if--

Dr Amari sighed sharply. “Alright,” she said, pointing at the left-most cradle. “Get in.”

Karen obeyed without another word spoken.

Quick to slip on a professional mask, Dr Amari had them underway in minutes, starting at the point just before the bombs dropped and working her way back from there. Seeing Shaun and Nate alive again like nothing ever happened was a pain Karen couldn’t put into words and so kept to herself.

The memories skipped back, piece by piece. The night she took the drugs was hazy and bordered on psychedelic, fracturing into an open void the further back they went. But there were sounds, smells, sensations--it wasn’t all gone. Flashes of _something_ came through and Karen gripped the arms of the cradle tight, heart rate rocketing.

_“—it again! It ain’t fighting like this.”_

A male voice, rough, Tennessee accent.

Fear hit her like a brick of ice to the stomach and Karen swallowed hard, trying to separate herself from the phantom emotion but it clung to her like it had nails in her bones.

Skipping, skipping--the images flickered, kaleidoscopic and overlapping in fragments, ‘the remains of memory wipes’ Dr Amari intoned somewhere off to her left. Karen barely heard her.

They froze. Pressure touched her face like she was wearing a breathing mask of some sort, accompanied by the cool weight of liquid across her whole body. Karen blinked and watched a twin stream of reedy bubbles pass her by on their way up. A hand reached out, _her_ hand if the tattoos were anything to go by, and pressed to the glass. A tank--she was in some kind of tank.

It reminded her of the tanks she’d seen in the FEV lab.

A figure approached from the other side of the glass. Karen watched their hand press to the glass, matching her own perfectly. She looked up to see them come into shape on the other side.

A mirror image stood outside the tank, a twin, her own face in every way.

There was _another_ Karen.


	23. Toy Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen finally finds the truth.

There was no stopping once it started. She had to know.

The fragments painted a picture of Old World machinations the likes of which had to be co-authored by Vault-Tec for its convoluted cruelty.

They wanted better soldiers, ones who wouldn’t break under captivity, who could keep going for hours, _days_ longer than what they had. Harder to hurt, harder to kill--better than the ‘real thing.’

Her final test was her time in the Sino-American War and when she came back broken they were angry. They argued about time and resources while her copy, the _original_ Karen simply watched her in the tank.

There were other tests, missions they washed from her mind as best they could like she was a damn robobrain but they _stuck_. Splinters of memory stuck under the skin, no simple brush of the hand could wipe them away but _fine tools_. They should’ve used tweezers.

Assassination, search & destroy, straightforward missions meant to test her obedience and efficiency. That was the easy part. It wasn’t until they started sending her out on missions to the front that problems started.

The real one argued with them, warned them not to, but they kept going.

It was real, her memories of China were real, they were _hers_. But she wasn’t. She didn’t exist. They erased her over and over, broke her memories into fractions upon fractions she had to piece together like picking through shattered glass.

The real Karen grew sick of it.

The harsh bark of a high calibre pistol rang through the walls of her tank and muffled shouting prevailed for only a few minutes before the memory melted, folding in on itself. Images faded in and out from there, the tank draining, her mask detaching--blood on the walls. Red ejecta from gunshots and bodies on the floor.

Shaking, scared, a small man in a white lab coat lifted his hands and pleaded. The image faded with another gunshot and she staggered, sensation bleeding in and out, vision swimming. Hard hands helped her walk to somewhere dark and quiet.

Clothes were put on and a pill box was pushed into her pocket with a note of instructions.

_“--get there--take all--forget--to go--!”_

Her own voice went in and out like a voice on the radio and it was all she could do to register even those few words.

The quiet gave way to snapping branches and crunching leaves, heavy breathing, the tang of sweat in the eyes and bile on the tongue. When she looked at the person running next to her they were indistinct, a ski mask or balaclava pulled over their head. Their eyes were intense.

Dogs barked, men yelled in the distance--she tripped and cut her hand on a log.

The real one, she knew it was the real Karen. She bound the hand of her copy and sent her away, cutting herself and leaving a trail for the dogs.

She ran south, crossing trails, roads and signs until she found her way to Sanctuary.

Nate was asleep.

She followed the note’s instructions, stripped, showered, and disposed of the old clothes. After that, she took the given amount of drugs and went to sleep.

“Karen!”

Dr Amari’s voice was loud, pulling Karen from the experience as surely as her hands were.

The room spun and Karen barely found her feet. Her stomach lurched and collided with a wall, vomiting a streak of bile down it before she slumped into merciful unconsciousness.


	24. Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen is taking her revelation poorly, so poorly that Magnolia has to intervene before it goes any further…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: Interrupted Suicide

Numb. She was numb to the burn, numb to the stench of cheap backroom whiskey—she couldn’t even say it was what she wanted. Karen wasn’t sure what exactly she wanted anymore, the hours had blurred into days and she rarely left the bar, but it wasn’t at the bottom of her glass no matter how much she swallowed. It would just come up again.

She nudged her glass back to Charlie and his optics fixed on her.

“Got orders from on high. You’ve had enough.”

She blinked slowly, dredging up his words from the ooze of her thoughts. A scowl crawled across her face and she tapped her glass on the counter.

Charlie took the glass from her with uncharacteristic care and set it aside. “No friend of Magnolia’s is gonna drink themselves to death at my bar,” he said quietly. The edge came back to his voice right away. “Go dry out on your own before I force you.”

She didn’t have it in her to argue the point and slipped from her seat, starting a slow, swaying march back to the Rexford.

Unbidden, her hand came to rest on the grip of her colt anaconda as a matter of comfort. Karen swallowed hard and felt the long barrel press against her leg as she walked, how heavy it felt on her hip. It had never felt so heavy before, not since China…

She walked through the Rexford lobby like an Old World zombie, eyes glazed and downcast, shoulders slumped, just putting one foot in the other like it was a tremendous feat.

Fumbling with the door, it took her a moment to get in and secure the bolt. She stripped off her jacket, pip boy and gloves, tossing them on the bed before she sat down on the edge.

The gun still felt so very heavy.

Swallowing thickly, Karen released the clip holding it in place and pulled it free, holding it on her hands. She checked the wheel, counting all six shots before clicking it back into place with a sharp flick of her wrist. 44. Magnum rounds, definitely powerful enough to do the job. Anyone who got away with a graze was rare and lucky.

She thought her hand would shake as she lifted the gun and pressed the barrel to the roof of her mouth, but it remained steady even as her eyes stung.

Threading her finger over the trigger she squeezed her eyes shut, held her breath and—

“Karen!” Magnolia’s voice forced her eyes open. There was knocking at the door, hard and hurried. Muffled voices went back and forth.

“Fine!” A deep, ghoulish voice barked with impatience.

A shotgun blast tore through the bolted section of the door, shattering the wood and swinging to door wide open.

Magnolia came in first, pale and worried, and froze as soon as she saw Karen.

For her part, Karen lowered the gun and let it rest on her lap, but she held it tight all the same.

Silence hung on the air for longer than Karen expected in her hazy state. She’d never seen Magnolia like this—she expected the feeling was mutual. She never did like putting on a show but people minded their own business at the Rail. Mostly.

Magnolia approached her slowly and knelt in front of her. “I know that whirlwind head of yours is caught up something big, but I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?”

Karen simply nodded, watching Magnolia smile thinly and place a hand on her knee. “I need you to give me your gun. It feels like the only thing that matters right now, that it’ll do something the drink won’t, but you know deep down it's not going to fix what went wrong.”

She blinked slowly and looked at the gun, turning it over in her hand. It was shaped lead in her palms and she released a shuddering breath, tightening her grip on it.

Magnolia carefully wrapped her hands around Karen’s, keeping the gun pointed down. “It’s alright, I’ll keep it safe,” she murmured, coaxing Karen to loosen her fingers one by one until the gun could be taken away.

The moment the weight left her hands something released a flood of relief and shock through her system. A sob forced its way passed her lips and her shoulders dropped as she dipped forward, burying her head in her hands.

Magnolia’s arms quickly wrapped around her, fingers curled tight into her shirt. There were no more words to be said, not for the moment. Karen simply cried until she fell asleep.


	25. Feeling Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PRE-INSTITUTE VICTORY ::: This happens not long after Karen returns from her very first visit to the Institute when That Complete Parental Mind Fuck happens.
> 
> And yes, I'll get to what comes of Karen's latest discovery about herself RE Piper. Just not yet.

“Hey, you in there, Blue?”

Karen blinked at the fingers clicking in front of her face. She tensed all over, fingers snarling against the fabric of her pants like someone had tased her.

Alarmed, Piper took half a step back and lifted her hands. “Woah! Hey, it’s okay,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s just me.”

It took a good few seconds for Karen to clear her thoughts, angrily sweeping them aside like so many leaves in a hurricane. She didn’t want to think about it. She blinked again and forced her hands to relax, slowly, along with the rest of her body, before she finally cleared her throat.

“I’m... “ She stopped and coughed, looking away. She finally saw where she was again, Piper’s place. Nat had just left for school.

The air here was thick, smothering. “I’m here,” Karen murmured, swallowing.

Piper frowned and settled next to her on the worn couch. Karen only took notice when Piper leaned on her shoulder, giving her a terribly endearing smile when she looked at her. The worry in those eyes was hard to ignore.

She didn’t want to think about it. She  _ couldn’t _ think about it.

Lacking telepathy, Piper gently asked, “Blue, what’s wrong?”

Karen exhaled and slowly shook her head. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Was it… something you found in the Institute?”

“Piper,  _ please. _ ”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Can I do anything?”

“I don’t know.”

Silence fell over them again, and Karen closed her eyes. She tried to focus on the feeling of Piper cuddling into her side, a simple bit of comfort to cling to as her mind tried to pull itself apart to get away from…him.

Karen winced and turned her head towards Piper’s, kissing her brow. 

She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to  _ think _ about what she found down there,  _ who _ she found down there, or the way it turned this entire bullshit situation on its head. Like it wasn’t enough to wake up to this new ruined world where any stranger was as likely to shoot you as help you,  _ no _ , now she had  _ this _ to deal with as well.

Something deep inside her twisted on itself, intimate and vile but frighteningly alluring, reminding her there was a loaded 44. Magnum on the table in front of her. There was a moment’s pause,  _ consideration _ , and she violently shoved it away, back into the box it crawled out of.

She lay a hand on Piper’s thigh and opened her eyes. Piper was looking at her, equal parts bemused and shy now that Karen was touching her. “Thought of something?” she murmured, idly moving her hands to Karen’s waist.

Karen dipped her head, coming within an inch or two of kissing Piper. “Only if you want to.”

“O-Of course I do, but… are  _ you  _ sure? No offence, but you don’t seem all there.”

“I’m fine. I just want to think about something else right now.”

Piper kissed her, and there was something, a small tingle, a tiny spark,  _ something _ other than numb shock. She grasped the feeling as tight as she dared, focused all her attention on the warmth of Piper’s lips. The sensation of pliant flesh in her palms as clothing fell away, the resistance of skin against her teeth, the  _ sound _ Piper made when they nipped at her ear--all things Karen could lose herself to,  _ wanted _ to lose herself to. She rushed headlong into that pleasurable space where nothing else mattered, desperate to escape.

It was a shame then, that when all was said a done, and she lay with a dozing Piper curled against her flank, that was she reminded such escape was always,  _ always _ temporary.


	26. Night of the Broken Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POST-INSTITUTE VICTORY ::: Karen tells Piper about her pre-war history as a clone soldier.

_“I don’t want to crush your hopes, darling, you know that. But if this goes as south as I think it will, you come right back_ here _, alright? I don’t want to hear about someone finding a body and_ don’t _get it in your head to just disappear.”_

Magnolia’s eyes were hard when she said that, and the words rattled around Karen’s head as she descended the stairs into Diamond City, rain hammering against metal and concrete. Her boots were heavy in the puddles, and she noted the light coming through the door of Publick Occurrences with a sinking weight in her belly.

She stood staring at it, unable to bring herself to knock as the rain soaked her through and made dust a distant concept. She fingered the key in her pocket—Piper hadn’t asked for it back. Even after she…

Karen closed her eyes and swallowed hard. The rain tuned out and her thoughts drifted back to a copy of the article Piper had written the month following that final battle at the airport. Suspicious, of course, but _hopeful_ , she was hopeful because of Karen. Somewhere behind the anger and betrayal, Piper still believed in her.

Reading the paper brought her back to Piper. They talked all night, about boundaries, motives, intentions, the _whys_. Piper was angry, but she wanted to understand. Things were easy when the enemy or the hated were simple to characterise and boil down. But she _knew_ Karen. She _loved_ Karen.

And _Karen_ wasn’t even real.

Her throat tightened, and she opened her eyes, glaring at the door. She lifted her fist to knock, her belly little more than a void of nausea and chills.

A lie would be _easy_. She could keep this fragile relationship alive and continue making good on her promise to turn the Institute into a force for real good on the surface. Piper would be proud, maybe even happy—but a lie wouldn’t be fair. Easy, god yes, but not fair.

She knocked three times and the door opened shortly, almost blinding her. Piper stood there, out of her coat, a confused smile on her lips as she took in Karen’s sodden figure.

“Blue? What are you—get in here before you freeze!” She grabbed Karen by the front of her jacket, but Karen clasped her wrist, making her pause.

“I need to talk to you.”

The grim tone of her voice drained all warmth from Piper’s face. She bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder, before stepping outside under the makeshift canopy. “What is it?” she asked curtly, crossing her arms.

Some tiny, childish part of her pleaded for the lie, pleaded for this little piece of happiness to be held and kept. Karen pushed it down and took a deep, steadying breath. “It’s about my past before I was frozen. I did some digging and found something I didn’t expect to. I thought you deserved to know.”

Piper frowned, worry creeping into her eyes. “Go on.”

Nodding, Karen couldn’t maintain eye contact and looked away. “I… I discovered that I was,” she stalled, throat trying to close around the words, bile rising at the back of her mouth. She didn’t want to say it, admit it—it tore something inside her to even think it. But refusing to say it wouldn’t make it any less true. She exhaled sharply and shook her head. “I was created in a lab. I’m a copy of the real Karen Stroud. An experimental soldier they could wipe and condition however they needed to. The real Karen broke me out and tried to wipe my memory just before the bombs dropped. It almost worked until I… went looking.”

The patter of rain filled an agonising four seconds before Piper said in a shaking voice, “that’s not funny.”

Karen closed her eyes. “No. It isn’t.”

“I mean it, Karen. That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

“No!”

It came with a thump against her chest and shoulder. She opened her eyes, and Piper had her by her jacket again. Desperation, anger, fear, confusion—Piper was a picture of distress, and it felt like a knife to the heart. Karen swallowed thickly and laid her hands on Piper’s shoulders. “I’m not joking,” she repeated softly.

Piper’s eyes went wide. “But you, why did—oh god. Oh god, Shaun.” She pulled away, stepped back, hands cover her mouth. “He wasn’t… you weren’t.”

“No. Those weren’t my memories.”

“What about your ink, your scars, was any of that…?”

“No. They just made me look like her. If I was hurt out there, they just fixed it up, so I didn’t deviate. I’m sorry, Piper.”

“You’re sorry?!”

Karen jumped despite herself. Piper’s hands dropped to her sides, balling into fists. “Sorry!” she repeated, eyes wet. “I loved you. I _loved_ you, and I loved hearing your stories, but those weren’t even yours! You’re not—!” she stopped short, teeth clenched.

The knife twisted. Karen looked at the wet concrete between them and hung her head. “Real?”

There was a shaking inhale, on the verge of tears. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

Karen nodded slowly and lifted her head to see Piper with her head in her hands. It took every ounce of remaining willpower _not_ to reach out. Chances were good that Piper would just push her away.

Stepping back out into the rain, Karen adjusted her jacket as a fresh torrent of water rushed over her. Piper looked up bleary-eyed and mouth a tight, downturned line. She didn’t say anything else. She turned and hurried inside, slamming the door behind her with a dull click.

Karen stood there for a long, numb moment, contemplating if she could have said it differently to soften the blow or if being blunt was the best way. Regardless, she took the key from her pocket and pushed it through the slot in the door. There was no response to that.

She turned away and began her walk back to Goodneighbour, head hung low, her heart lower, and the magnum heavy on her hip. Tempting, perhaps, but Karen wasn’t planning to break the heart of a second woman in one week.


	27. The Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POST-INSTITUTE VICTORY ::: Coming to terms with her history will be a hard road for Karen to walk.

“So what now?”

Karen paused, blinking slowly, and resumed pouring two glasses of whiskey. She set the bottle aside and turned back to Magnolia, settled at the table by the window, the warm light of sunset casting an orange glow around her.

“I’m not sure.” Karen shook the observation from her mind and brought the drink to Magnolia, sitting across from her. “I thought about it all the way back, and I’m just not sure yet.”

“Come now, you must have some idea.”

“I… I can’t just disappear. I’ve started something with the Institute, I need to finish it. Leaving now would be… cowardly.”

Magnolia traced the rim of her glass, her brow pinched in thought. “It’d leave a lot of desperate people in a slump, for sure,” she said, eyeing Karen’s hands. “Besides, you’ve only scratched the surface. There’s a lot of fear and distrust to work through yet.”

The new outposts were doing well, they’d even started reinforcing crucial crossroads with tentative cooperation from the Minutemen. The more the two worked together, the better they coordinated, and the safer people felt. Seeing the affable, very much human Minutemen working with Institute synths to make things better–it was a powerful visual.

Raider activity was dropping every month as supplies increased and defences were reinforced. A few months back they arranged a ‘clean up’ squad of Gen 2s to attack known raider camps. Once they were clear, the squad dropped a beacon, and Gen 1 ‘scrappers’ were sent out to dismantle and gather anything that could be repurposed. It was slow work, but it was effective.

The Institute was going to make things better, even if Karen had to drag them kicking and screaming to do it.

That she wasn’t really human herself was impossible to wrap her head around right now. Her skull throbbed at the thought of it and she sighed, downing some of her drink.

Magnolia laid a hand on the glass as she put it down, catching her eye. “People are scared easier by things they don’t understand. Do you know where you came from?”

Karen blinked slowly, caught off guard by the question. She cleared her throat and frowned. “I… I think so? I remember running south to reach Sanctuary Hills. It took a few days, and I never stopped.” She shook her head slowly. “I should have noticed it when I forgot to eat or… just kept going. I ignored it, or I put it down to adrenaline or just,” she huffed out a bitter laugh and looked away. “just good fucking military training.”

Magnolia squeezed her hand, bringing Karen’s attention back to her. “Do you think you could find that place again? Maybe it’ll help you understand yourself better.”

Something cold and dreadful coiled in her belly at the thought of going back. Karen quickly swallowed and shook it off. “It’d be a trek, but I believe I could do it, whether a facility is still there or not is… up for debate.”

“But if it  _is_  there…”

“I might get some answers.”

Magnolia nodded and let go of her hand.

Silence fell around them, but Karen felt no need to fill it. They sat by the window, drinking quietly and watching the sunset sweep its last rays of light through Goodneighbour.


End file.
